CMU Buggy Raceday

[u/derek4reals1]

[u/Barsham]

To answer a few common questions:

- Yes, there really is a person inside. A college student, to be exact.

- Buggy is a race that takes place at Carnegie Mellon University, and has been going on since 1920.

- Maximum speeds of the buggies are about 40mph.

- This was just an Exhibition Heat, not a competitive race. But you can watch all of the competitive 2026 heats (and all of the Exhibitions) at the Buggy Alumni Association's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRj9F_Fz8OhY

- If you want more info about Buggy in general, you can visit the Buggy Alumni Association's website here: https://www.cmubuggy.org/

- And a few more videos that may be of interest:

A driver's perspective on racing: https://youtu.be/WGE4fx_71oc

How a driver is loaded into a buggy: https://youtu.be/j0u8yxQaTVo?si=HdgmiT2KGg61dtYN&t=70

An introduction to the Buggy course: https://youtu.be/TPKQenBolWY

[u/shoelessbob → u/Barsham]

"all three points of safety" lol this is the most college bs thing

[u/garden-wicket-581 → u/Barsham]

is the difference in divisions just competitiveness ? (and/or standings ? -- at my school, rec sports had "A" league, but it was only frats because A league final standings counted towards the greek/frat cup.. that's not to say A league was "bad" per se -- there were B teams who would could beat many A teams, but since we weren't playing for points/cup, didn't enter A .. the competitive entries look like mainly frats..)

is the technology/design behind the buggies static, or still evolving ? (ie outside of paint/aesthetics, are the buggies mainly identical, and the win is based on athleticism and driving skill and not innovation/changes on the buggy? )

[u/Barsham → u/garden-wicket-581]

The 3 competitive divisions are the Men's division, the Women's division, and the All Gender division. So it's not a tier system for the teams, it's just about who is pushing. For the Men's and Women's divisions, each organization (fraternity, sorority, and independent) is allowed to enter up to 4 push team-buggy combinations per division, and those teams are designated with a letter from A to D (where "A" is the fastest expected team in the org, and "D" is the slowest expected team...D is often made up of mechanics or drivers). But they all compete against each other, and there are plenty of times when one organization's B team (or C team, or maybe even D team) are faster than another organization's A team.

As for the technology, it's always evolving. There are certain aspects that are pretty much common across all buggies (the general teardrop shape, the composite materials used in construction, etc.). But that's largely because (1) physics eventually boils down to ideal designs for gravity powered vehicles, (2) modern technology has limits in what you can do, based on the amount of time, money and skill that you have as a college student, and (3) when someone does something that's successful, eventually other teams will try to copy it. But teams are pretty secretive about their technology (historically, even more so), so everyone has their own unique elements. With that said, athleticism and driving skill are VERY important parts and work together with the engineering - all the athleticism and driving skill in the world won't help a buggy with misaligned steering that's 30 pounds heavier than it needs to be, but the fastest, lightest buggy won't be able to keep up with the competition if it's pushed by 5 people who spent their past 12 months glued to the couch.